Living in Your Letters
by saveoneforblack
Summary: A series of letters to and from characters in the Dollanganger series by V.C. Andrews.
1. Intro

LIVING IN YOUR LETTERS  
  
The unknown is a very mysterious and attractive thing to all of us. To me the unknown of the lives of my favorite characters is an exciting thing. My quest to understand the unknown was the inspiration for this series.  
  
Each chapter is a letter written to and from characters from the Dollanganger series by V.C. Andrews. Each letter is a look into the character's personality, their feelings and thoughts and views on the world around them. Each letter is a small look beyond what is already written, a peek into how I interpret the unknown.  
  
Some letters are sent and replied to; others are secret letters not meant to be read by anyone. A few are excerpts from books by V.C. Andrews, which have been included to make the series more realistic and to add to the story. These letters are marked with disclaimers.  
  
Obviously, the series is not yet complete. I've just started and plan to have about fifty original letters, so it may take awhile. Your reviews will motivate me to write more and update quickly, so don't be shy to leave your comments!  
  
Without further ado, enjoy the letters. 


	2. To Daddy, from Cathy, June 23 1957

Dear Daddy,  
  
I miss you so much.  
  
It's been a few months since you died and went up to Heaven and left us down here to cry for you and for what we all lost, and still I am crying. Every Friday evening I cry when you don't burst into the house and call out for us to greet you with hugs and kisses. Every night at dinner I cry when I look at your seat at the head of the table and see just an empty space. And every night when I go to sleep I cry because you didn't kiss me goodnight. I never even knew I had this many tears in me. I never knew anything could hurt this much, for your death has hurt me, hurt all of us, a million times worse than anything we've ever experienced.  
  
The world isn't the same without you in it. Nothing seems as beautiful or bright without your smile and laughter. Why did you have to leave us? Why did God take you away? God was wrong to take you, because we need you here, more than He could ever need you. We need a loving father to take care of us and Momma needs a husband to make her happy. Momma is so sad without you, Daddy. Her face has lost its brightness and she never smiles anymore. She, like the rest of us, feels hopeless.  
  
But maybe there's a bit of hope. We are on our way to Momma's parents' house as I write this. We are going to live with them from now on, since we cannot afford to live on our own anymore. Momma's parents, though they haven't seen her in almost twenty years, have invited us to live with them in their Virginia mansion. Can you imagine that, Daddy? Us in a grand mansion fit for kings and queens! But all the riches in the world can't make up for what you meant to me.  
  
And I'm a little scared of this place we've never seen and these grandparents we've never met before. They disowned Momma long ago for doing something they disapproved of, and only now they are starting to forgive her and welcome her back into their lives. What if they are still angry with her for whatever she did, and what if they don't like us, her children? But how could they not love the twins, for they are the most beautiful and lovely children; everyone back home in Gladstone said so. And they have to love Christopher… he's so smart and very mature for his age, so much like you, a real gentleman and I'm sure they will appreciate that. And maybe they'll appreciate my talent for dancing, too. Maybe they'll think I am beautiful and think of me as their little princess. But I could never really be anyone's princess but yours, Daddy. I could never love anyone as much as I love you either, you don't have to worry about that.  
  
I'm a little worried for us, though, and how we'll fare in this new world and this new life without you. Please watch over us from Heaven, and make sure we are happy and safe and warm, always. Because right now everything is cold when you're not here to hold me in your warm arms and tell me everything is going to be all right.  
  
It feels like nothing will ever be all right again.  
  
Forever loving you,  
Cathy  
June 23, 1957 


	3. To Cathy, from Chris, July 6 1958

My Lady Catherine,  
  
The look in your eyes frightened me this morning. They were so shallow, so cold, so despairing. The twins and I are locked in this nightmare just as you are, and yet neither Carrie nor Cory look as forlorn as you, and while I hate living here like this, I don't feel the madness that is so evident in your eyes. What makes it so different for you?  
  
You've changed so much over the past year. You used to be bright and alive, impressionable and innocent. Now, after living in a single room with a dusty attic for a playground for a full year, you're no longer the sweet Cathy I used to know. Now you're dark and cynical. You are depressed all of the time, even when we do have a fun day, like when we put on plays for the twins or when we spend hours playing an exciting game of Monopoly. You seem to have no hope left for our future. No hope left for the outdoors and for sunshine and for the happiness we once knew, before Daddy died.  
  
Why? Why can't you accept that we have to make sacrifices now in order to be fulfilled later? Why can't you accept that Momma really is doing the best she can for now, and that she's trying as hard as she can to get us out of here?  
  
Maybe I'll never know why.  
  
Maybe I'll never understand you. But I wish you'd help me to understand, because I hate seeing you so sad, so depressed. You're my sister and I love you, and it hurts to see you with dismal, hopeless eyes and with a perpetual frown. Isn't there anything I can do to make you feel better?  
  
Maybe what I'm going to say next will bring at least small smile to your lips. It's something I could never say to your face, because men just don't know how to say these things aloud. And don't tease me about all this later, for this is a very serious thing, and I'm only writing it because I truly think it needs to be said.  
  
Anyway, the real reason for this letter is to tell you how proud I am of you. Even in these harsh conditions, and even though I know you're feeling as dark as the black night sky, you've shown that you're not a girl anymore. You're a woman, a woman who takes responsibility and does what needs to be done without a second's thought. You sure have matured, Cathy. You're a wonderful mother to the twins when our real mother isn't here for them. You're a great "housewife" to our little family, keeping things organized and functional. I admire all this.  
  
And most of all I admire the friend you've been to me. In the past year I've learned more about you than I knew in all the twelve years of your life in Gladstone. And what I've learned is that you're an emotional, thoughtful person who has great passion and ambition inside of her. You're a loving and generous person who I am proud to call my sister. If I didn't have you here to keep me company, to teach and to learn from, to argue and debate with, and most of all to love, I don't know what I would do. And so I want to thank you for being such a great sister, and I hope I am a good brother to you. You deserve the best brother and I'll do whatever it takes to give you what you deserve.  
  
What you really deserve is happiness. And I know happiness is elusive here in this place. It all too often gets snared in the sprawling cobwebs of the attic. But haven't we learned that with a little care and patience, even the dustiest corner can be cleaned? Maybe all you have to do is wipe away the dirt and see the beauty that lies underneath. Maybe all you have to do is forget the ugly things and think only of the good, and of the future and all that lies ahead of us.  
  
Please, if you are ever feeling as sad as you were this morning, tell me what to do to make it a little better. Tell me what to do when your eyes are as empty and unforgiving as they were today. Let me know the things to say to bring a little life back into your face.  
  
Because I'd say anything, Cathy, to see that lovely smile of yours.  
  
Chris  
July 6, 1958 


	4. To Chris, from Cathy, April 8 1960

Dear Chris,  
  
How strange it feels to write you a letter. When in the past three years have you not been in the same room as I or only a minute away in the bathroom or attic? You are always right there at my side, like an extension of myself, ready to listen to whatever I have to say. But tonight, you're not. You're probably pilfering through Momma's dresser drawers right this moment, looking for loose coins or dollar bills to steal away. And it's not that I have anything to say, really; I just get so scared whenever you pass quietly through the door of our prison, and writing to you comforts me a little. I get really terrified, Chris, you couldn't imagine! My heart pounds five times as fast and I feel ready to explode with anxiety until you appear in that doorway again.   
  
Cory threw up again a few minutes ago. I managed to get him into bed and he fell asleep right away, and he's so pale and still right now it looks as if he's just a corpse. It's scary, Chris. Horrifying to see him like this and know that true death isn't that far away… for any of us. I know you'll say I'm just being morbid, but death occupies my mind so much of the time that I feel like the Grim Reaper himself is hovering forever over my shoulder. So many things could kill us here: sickness, lack of nutrition, fire, or who knows, the Grandmother could even be poisoning us.  
  
I hope you hurry back. Whenever you're away my emotions seem to run rampant, the kind of emotions that make me feel guilty. When you're here, it's easier to look at you with the twins and see you as the big brother you've always been to us. As strange as it seems, it's easier to push these sinful feelings away when you're near me… perhaps because I'm so afraid of acting on them, so I know I must push them away. But when you're gone, all I have left of you is what's in my imagination, and you know how my imagination can run away with me. I fantasize that you really are the knight in shining armor I used to talk about, and that you will storm in here to rescue us all, and be not Christopher Dollanganger, my brother, but some other man, nameless, but with your same beautiful face, your gentle and caressing hands and your eyes that seem to look into the very core of me. I fantasize other things, Chris. Things that I shouldn't be thinking about at all, especially not where you are concerned.  
  
Do you think God can see into our minds? The Grandmother says He can see everything we do; but can He see into our hearts' eye? Can He see the love I feel for you isn't sisterly love, but isn't evil or sinful, either? For how can something that saves me, keeps me clinging to life and to hope and faith, day after treacherous, toiling day, be wrong? We aren't hurting anyone when we kiss or touch and we certainly don't mean to hurt anyone. We're only trying to give each other comfort, right? We're only trying to make our own sunshine when the heavy drapes keep the real light away from us. So why, then, is it wrong?  
  
Chris, I've been thinking of this since we first heard the story of our mother's sinful marriage to her half-uncle, our father. They were wonderful parents to us, always loving and caring and we never wanted for anything. They did nothing evil or bad that I can remember. They were not murderers or thieves. They went to church and did not worship Satan. They hurt no one with their marriage, so why is it so bad? Why must incest be such an irreversible and unforgivable sin against God if it's not committed cruelly or sadistically, but only in pure love and goodness?  
  
I know you can't answer any of these questions any better than I can. Perhaps no one can answer them, not even the Grandmother - not that I would ever ask her, anyway. Or maybe one day I will ask her. One day, when we're free and healthy and living our own lives, I will come back to her, and confront her about this all, and ask what was so evil about four children who never did a single bad thing to anyone. Why did four children who never even knew the truth about their so-called sinning parents deserve such punishment? When we are tall and strong and not afraid of her monstrosity and the whip she wields so ruthlessly, maybe she'll speak to us without contempt, and maybe she will have a real answer for us instead of hiding behind her precious Bible and the written word of God that, in my opinion, is sometimes very wrong. Maybe one day she'll realize the real sinners were not us, who have tried so much to repent for the sins we never committed and to earn only a little of her respect and love; but that the sinner is she who has shown only hate and violence to her own flesh and blood.  
  
But until that day, what is there to do but sit here at the table, writing all these pointless, rambling thoughts to you while Cory lies like a corpse in his bed, and his small sister clings faithlessly to his side. What is there to do but try not to think of the pain, the fear, and the hopelessness, and try our very best to look towards the future and know it will be bright and warm and full of sunshine.  
  
But sometimes that's so hard to do. Especially when you're not here to promise me that brightness and warmth and sunshine. Chris, you are my brightness. You are my warmth and you are my sunshine. I need you more than anything else in this world. Without you there is no world.  
  
So hurry back to this room, please.  
  
Loving you,  
Cathy  
April 8, 1960 


	5. To God, from Cory, September 17 1960

Dear God,  
  
Chris and Cathy told me that when you die, you go up to Heaven to be with God. But the grandmother says that when you are bad and you sin, you go to Hell.  
  
That scares me because I have been bad and I sinned. I broke some of the grandmother's rules, like not sharing the bathroom with girls and wearing only my nightclothes in the daytime. Does that mean I'm going to Hell?  
  
I don't want to go to Hell, God. Not because I'm scared of what the grandmother says about roasting over eternal flames, but because my daddy went to Heaven when he died, and I want to be with my daddy again. I don't remember so much about Daddy, like Chris and Cathy do because they lived with him longer. But I remember a few things like how he held Carrie and me on his lap and read us a story before bed and the funny voices he did for the big bad wolf and the three little pigs. I remember him carrying me on his shoulders and I felt like I was flying. I remember that my daddy loved us all so much. He loved us for real, not like Momma who don't come to see us anymore, and acts weird when she does. I think Momma forgot when we lived with Daddy. She forgot how she used to love us as much as he did.  
  
I know I am going to die soon. I feel real sick, like I'm never going to get better again. And sometimes I'm not so scared to die, because maybe I will go to Heaven and get to be with Daddy again, and get to see the grass and the trees again, that Daddy took up to Heaven with him. But I'm very scared I will go to Hell instead. Please don't send me to Hell, God. I didn't mean to sin or be the Devil's Issue. I didn't mean to hurt Mickey when I squeezed him too hard, it was an accident. I'm sorry I looked at Carrie and Cathy when they weren't wearing any clothes. Please forgive me.  
  
Please don't punish Carrie or Chris or Cathy for being bad either. I know they didn't mean to be. Cathy and Chris, they're like parents to me and Carrie, better than my real Momma is now, and isn't that worth something? I love my sisters and brother and I know they love me and each other. I don't want them to worry about me when I die. I want them to know I am up in Heaven with Daddy and with God, and that we all are watching over them and loving them.  
  
Cathy says it's lunchtime so I got to go downstairs and eat now. Please hear my prayers, God, and take me to Heaven with you when I die.  
  
Cory Dollanganger  
September 17, 1960 


	6. To Cory, from Chris, November 3 1960

Dear Cory,  
  
It's been one week since you died. The worst week of all of our lives. The week when the Grandmother starved us wasn't this agonizing; even the days after Cathy and I were whipped weren't this painful. Living here without you is so much worse, because without you, our fourth Dresden Doll, none of us are whole.  
  
Especially Carrie. She's been quiet and meek for some time now, but since you died, she has said hardly a full sentence. She's a shadow, a shell of her former bright, happy self. I miss the girl Carrie used to be, and I miss the sweet little boy you were before we came to live in Foxworth Hall. I hate what our mother and grandparents have done to you. They killed you, Cory!  
  
And for what? For money, for wealth, for all the dreams our mother ever had. Didn't she ever dream of watching her children grow up? Didn't she ever dream of seeing her youngest son graduating from high school and college, and getting married, and one day having children of his own, surely little buttercups just as he was in his youth? Or are those expensive dresses and flashy jewels she wears more important to her? I think they are. Money now is more important to her than her own children, the children she used to love and cherish, the children that are now, slowly, one by one, dying. I hate her. I hate her so much for this.  
  
But even more, I hate myself. For I know I am to blame in so many ways for what's happened to you. You were taken from us as punishment for the sin I committed with Cathy. We were warned time and again by the Grandmother - warned that God sees all, and will punish the evil we do. And she was right. Cathy and I committed the same sin our parents did in loving each other, loving someone whose veins ran with our same blood. And I can't even begin to explain why or how it happened, why I fell so deeply in love with my own sister, and why I didn't have more control to stop the sin that we should have known could and would happen. And God saw, and God has punished.  
  
But He shouldn't have punished us through you, Cory. He shouldn't have taken you! It's unfair to you and to Carrie, who not once did anything evil! And I hate Him for that, too!  
  
Cathy calls me her perpetual cockeyed optimist, always seeing the bright side of things. But there is no bright side to this. How can there be, when all there is is suffering, regret, and hatred. So much hatred I feel now, towards everyone who has been a part of this. I hate our mother for bringing us here, and for caring more about her wealth than our welfare. I hate the Grandfather for living on and on, and the Grandmother for being so ruthless and hard with four innocent young children. I hate myself for not listening to Cathy and escaping this place long ago. I hate myself for having faith when there was none. I hate myself for finding love in the one person I never should have touched. I hate myself for it all.  
  
I am so sorry for everything, Cory. I'll never forgive myself for letting you die, when I should be the one who died. You deserve life and love and all the sunshine you've longed for while in that dark, dusty attic. You deserve everything I had when I was a boy, and you deserve the life that might be ahead of me, if we do manage to get out of this place alive. I don't deserve anything but this guilt and this pain, and I'll always feel the guilt and pain.  
  
And I'll always keep your smiling face in my head - the way you used to be, when we lived in Gladstone. My brother, so much like me but so different, so much better.  
  
I love you, Cory, we all love you, and we all miss you. But I know you're up in Heaven, with Daddy - for even though God has punished us by taking you, I know he would never punish a kindhearted, sweet, smart little boy like you by sending you anywhere but straight into His loving arms, where you can be with Daddy and live eternally in the sun. Be safe there, Cory, and remember that we are thinking of you, and loving you always.  
  
Your brother,  
Chris  
November 3, 1960 


	7. To God, from Carrie, November 4 1960

Dear God,  
  
For more than three years me and my brothers and sister listened to the Grandmother tell us about you, and how you see all, and know all, and will punish the evil we do behind her back. For years we read the Bible and your teachings, and learned about not just about how you punish sinners but your love for all your children. And now I don't think I believe any of it, that you love your children, or maybe that you even exist at all.  
  
How could you take Cory away from me? Cory never did anything bad, not really, and if we made mistakes, that's all they were, mistakes. We never meant to sin, or do evil. Cory was the best brother ever. He was more than a brother, he was a part of me, half of me, and now he's gone and I don't even feel real anymore. How could you take him? How could you be so blind to us children down here, trapped in one room for years and years and not loved by anyone but ourselves? We suffered so much, we are victims of the sins of our others, and here you come to punish us even more, when we don't deserve it!  
  
If there really is a God, if you are real, then I hate you. I hate you for what you done to us. You took Daddy away, so we had to come live here. You made the grandmother believe that our family is full of sinners and she is right by punishing us in your name. You made Momma weak and tempted by money. You let us suffer here, all alone and afraid. And now you took Cory, when he never done anything bad. You took him away from me, and now I have nothing, and I never done anything bad either.  
  
How could you do all that when you are supposed to love your children? You are blind to your children, and cruel. You punish without even looking to see if you should. You are unfair. You are ignorant. And if you are real, I will never forgive you, and never pray to you again, because you don't answer prayers.  
  
Don't know what I'm going to do now, without Cory. Maybe Chris and Cathy will want to leave now, and we'll escape, and maybe find a new home and make it on our own. Maybe we'll survive. But I'll never really be happy. I'll never be whole again, without my Cory.  
  
The Bible says you have a divine plan for everyone. Was this your plan for us? Years of undeserved unhappiness, sickness, pain, and loss? If it was, then congratulations, because your plan has worked.  
  
Carrie Dollanganger  
November 4, 1960 


End file.
